EPWPs in the driving seat
Job creation, skills development and overall socioeconomic progress for all SA citizens — particularly those who were previously excluded from participating in and benefiting from economic activities — are priority areas for the department of environmental affairs and, as such, the department has over the years implemented broad programmes to drive these aims.
The Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) is one of the major plans the department has implemented. It consists of a number of initiatives to facilitate development and growth in various environmental sectors.
“The EPWP initiative aims to draw in a significant number of unemployed South Africans — with a focus predominantly on youth, women and people with disabilities — in a productive manner that will enable them to gain skills and increase their capacity to earn an income,” says deputy minister of environmental affairs Barbara Thomson.
“A core objective for each programme is to alleviate poverty and uplift households by stimulating growth through small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs), and working with communities to identify local opportunities that will benefit them by bringing about balance between the economic, environmental and social issues in a sustainable way.”
These aims are achieved mainly through the following programmes: Working for the Coast, Working for Water, Working for Waste, Working for Land, Working for Wetlands, Working on Fire, Youth Environmental Services (YES), Youth Jobs in Waste, Groen Sebenza Jobs Fund Partnership, the Eco Furniture Programme, Working for Energy, Working for Ecosystems, Working for Forests, and People and Parks.
Since the inception of the EPWP in 2004, says Thomson, almost 1,3m jobs have been created, and the department plans to build on this foundation.
Working for the Coast, says Thomson, is one of the biggest programmes the department has implemented, and was designed to work in tandem with the Integrated Coastal Management Act in order to manage the SA coastline to ensure the sustainable use of its natural resources, as well as to promote equal access for citizens to enjoy the beauty of the country’s coastline.
Problems such as environmental pollution, destruction of coastal habitats, sedimentation, urbanisation, and the influx of tourists, make the rehabilitation and pro- tection of coastal areas a priority.
As a result, the programme features various categories such as the cleaning of the coast, the removal of illegal and abandoned structures, removal of alien invasive vegetation — in conjunction with Working for Water — and monitoring and compliance with Environmental Impact Assessments, among others.
Around 30 000 people have been trained to manage the coastline since 2009, Thomson says, with the primary beneficiaries being local women and youth.
The Working for Water programme serves to control and contain alien invasive plants and was first launched in 1995. “It considers the development of people as an essential element of environmental conservation and works in partnership with local communities and government departments,” Thomson says.
“Since its inception, the programme has cleared more than 2m ha of invasive alien plants and provided jobs and training to around 26 000 people a year, of which 56% are women. It currently runs over 300 programmes in all nine of SA’s provinces.”
Four methods — mechanical, chemical, biological and integrated — are employed to control alien invasives. Mechanical involves felling, removing or burning the plants, while chemical makes use of environmentally safe herbicides. Biological uses speciesspecific insects and diseases from the alien plant’s country of origin. Integrated, as the name suggests, uses a combination of mechanical, chemical and biological approaches.
The programme, Thomson says, is globally recognised as one of the most effective environmental conservation efforts on the continent and enjoys widespread support for its job-creation and skills development efforts.
“The EPWP projects are good initiatives, but we need to work on ensuring that the environment is managed in better and more sustainable ways,” says Thompson.